Almost five months ago, early June, my wife (I’ll call her K or “Skeptic,” in order to maintain some pretense of anonymity) and I decided to home school our older son (“A” or “SchoolLess”), who is now twelve.

We both teach, for money— high school art in Gatsbyland for K, writing and literature at “The Small College of Big Dreams” in Downtown Brooklyn for me— but would rather be making art (pictures, stories, respectively). We have a younger son, Z our “Smaller Man,” and an old fat cat. The cat, Abe, and I, Jason, will use our real names.

SchoolLess, though not SmallerMan, took active part in the seemingly-never-to-end-pros-and-cons-this-that-no-school debate. You’ll be hearing more about that torturous process soon.

Many of the folks whose counsel I sought about all this know me to be a writer by inclination (if in theory more than in practice) and they very quickly moved from a discussion of the relative merits of home schooling to an insistence that I write about the experience.

If a child is home schooled in Brooklyn and the experience isn’t documented publicly in excruciating (loving!) detail, does the kid get any education at all? Philosophy aside, I have ignored the exhorting crowd— “it’s easy,” “just do it”—long enough.

Narration, Looking on the Bright Side, & Other Artistic Endeavors“I’ve been grieving, not quite rationally, though I am beginning to feel cautiously optimistic that some sense of closure approaches, even as I am aware that the passive nature of this statement may suggest otherwise.”